Juniors and Seniors

Last week Mr M&H and I watched ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’ on channel 4. It tuned into something obvious to me, which is that the different generations need to spend more time together in general.

I look around in daily life, and notice that the youngest and the oldest people get herded away into designated safe areas, like schools, playgrounds, nursing and residential homes. There may be good reasons for this, it’s a convenient way of looking after them, and the middle generation (i.e. the work force) are generally too busy working to pay the mortgage to do much else, but it does marginalise them. The end result is that everybody becomes isolated in their own boxes, some more than others. For the older ones, apart from the nursing homes, there are the 3.6 million people in the UK who are over 65 and live alone.

Thinking back to life BM&H (before Mole and Hedgehog) I was working full time in London, I had no real contact with any children, I would visit my parents on the occasional weekend and saw elderly relatives very rarely. My world consisted of people in their 20’s and 30’s, who were largely like myself. I guess this was natural, but the result is that you can get sucked into this vortex where you become unaware of anyone outside of those perimeters, and then you begin to get isolated from other generations, you may even think they are irrelevant or unimportant.

I was guilty of all those things, until Mole and Hedgehog came along and set me straight.

I was still a member of the work force generation, but doing something completely different. Apart from launching me into baby world, the wider family rallied round and really came into their own for support. Having a baby is also the definitive ice breaker. Old people would stop and chat with me on the street because of Mole and Hedgehog, they seemed drawn to us, I struck up conversations with people I would never normally mix with otherwise.

Mole and Hedgehog acted like social magnets and forced the parents and the neighbours to talk to each other, rather than remain in their safe isolated pods. Children will play with anyone, they have none of the social reserve that adults carry, it gives everyone a lift, and it’s infectious. The whole experience served to widen my peripheries, make me less judgemental and more patient.

Sometimes, when Mole and Hedgehog are playing with the neighbouring children at the end of our road, while the parents and the older residents are outside chatting with each other, passing dog walkers join in, and anyone else who fancies a chin-wag, I get a glimpse of how life could be, if it were like this all the time.

Anyway, watching ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’ made me impatient to see day trips between preschools and nursing homes as part of the curriculum. There is a nursing home in our village which is literally just over the road from Mole’s preschool, so I’m on the case.

I guess this program also resounded with me because it reminded me of our parents, whose lives are all changing in various ways and who are slowly marching towards old age. It’s strange being the middle generation, watching our children grow up and our parents grow old. I have flashbacks to my own childhood and weekend visits to my grandparents. I remember how slow their life seemed compared with the pace of life once we returned home. Now I’m increasingly conscious of how slow our parent’s lives seem compared with our own. It’s all coming full circle.

Meanwhile Mole and Hedgehog are too fast for us, with their accelerated idea of pregnancy and childbirth. They’ve been stuffing various soft toys up their tops, sometimes dolls but anything will do, a cat or a tiger for instance, with the loud declaration of “MUMMY, I’VE GOT A BABY IN MY TUMMY”.

Me: “Really, that’s nice dear. Is it being born soon?”

Mole: “Yes, at 5 o’clock”.

Me: Okay then.

Later.

Mole: “Mummy, my baby just popped out”.

Me: “Just like that?”.

Mole: “Yes, look she’s walking now”.

Me: “She’s a fast developer”.